


i'm swooning. my hero.

by timetravelingpalmer



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluffy, Headcanon, Wow, but somehow still angsty, dumb fluff, kind of a camelot au?, they just love each other so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 11:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16240823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetravelingpalmer/pseuds/timetravelingpalmer
Summary: “What, so you just hung out with King Arthur and Sir Raymond of the… Oh shit.”It wasn’t hard for her to piece together that Ray was telling the truth. The name was damn near the exact same and the look on his face told the whole story.[or: Nora read The Tales of Camelot in the asylum and always had a certain liking towards one knight in particular. One that had always given her hope.]





	i'm swooning. my hero.

**Author's Note:**

> hey so this came from a real dumb idea that was rolling around in my brain for a while that i'm pretty excited about.
> 
> also, big thanks to @plinys (the darhkatom queen herself) for validating me when i first started working on this fic.
> 
> leave me comments and i'll love you forever

There weren’t any good days in the asylum. Mallus was always whispering in the back of her mind, but some days were worse than others. Some days Mallus’s voice in Nora’s head was so deafening she couldn’t think straight. 

 

There wasn’t much to do in there either. She spent most her days confined in her room, which was seeming more like a cell everyday, with small breaks in the day where she went to the just as dreary common areas to eat.

 

The people she saw there scared her. They were unhinged, insane. She hoped she wasn’t anything like them but as the days kept ticking by she started to feel more and more like she belonged there. The voices kept getting louder and louder and she started to feel more like Mallus than Nora. That may have been what scared her the most. 

 

But she still had one solace on days where the hopelessness over took her, when the voice saying that she couldn’t fight it started to sound more and more like truth, and that was the library. 

 

Nora could tell that the term library was used very loosely. It was a dusty shelf that sat in the back corner of the cafeteria, so out of the way the harsh lighting from the fluorescent bulbs barley made their way to it. Only seven books lived on the shelf. All had their pages wrinkled with use and their covers and spines bent harshly. Her favorite was the most beat up out of them all, partly because of her own use of it. 

 

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. 

 

It was chapter after chapter of stories of the different knights saving the day, because they knew it was the right thing to do. They preserved the good and fought against the people who tried to destroy it. 

 

She may have been a kid but Nora wasn’t stupid. She didn’t know exactly what she was being used for, but she knew now that it couldn’t be good. It became more and clear that she was being  _used,_ no longer working with Mallus, but for him instead. Mallus said he would be able to help bring back her father, but as the days went by it seemed less and less likely that was his intent. She knew she was slowly becoming the villain if the story. 

 

She didn’t want to be though. She wanted to be like the characters in the book. Even though it was a distant fantasy, reading about it made it seem more real. That there were people out there who were kind and honorable. 

 

She poured over every chapter whenever she got the chance. But, on particularly scary days there was one story that she counted on the most, which was the one about Sir Raymond of the Palms. 

 

It was about a brave man who traveled with his friends (and a leper) trying to accomplish a quest of their own. They came into Camelot, only focused on what they had to do and when it was done were ready to leave. But with them came a tyrant called ‘The Black Knight’. Once the quest was done Sir Raymond’s friends had tried to get him to leave, but he refused. People still needed protecting from the invading armies. He wanted to help everyone. 

 

The book was chock full of stories of knights helping because of their allegiance to some king but Sir Raymond became a knight not because of some old king, but because he wanted to help everyone, because it didn’t matter if he knew them. If someone was in trouble he wanted to be there to save them. 

 

Nora sometimes found herself hoping against all logic that this made up knight would come and save her. She was not sure anyone in their right mind would. They would see what she’s become and turn their back on her. It made things easier to imagine someone out there wouldn’t. Who would see that she can be good if given the chance. 

 

She had learned the story front to back, infatuated with how someone could be so kind, how they could risk everything for people they didn’t even know. 

 

Never had she come across a person like that (not that she was ever in the place to), but imagining he was out there made the voice in her head soften. Made it easier to fall asleep and even more so to wake up.

 

Even if it was just in her imagination. 

 

———-

  
  


Since Nora has been on the Waverider she had picked up on how things seemed to work on board. Sara always seemed to have the final say in everything, which was quite impressive considering she was in charge of several highly impulsive and stubborn people.

 

Occasionally though, the stubbornness fought tooth and nail and won. Usually in the form of Ray Palmer being annoyingly noble. Nora noticed that the scientist had a habit of ending the missions on his own terms, refusing to leave until every person possible was safe. 

 

This usually led to him putting himself in more danger, running back into burning buildings, through the rubble of an explosion. 

 

After a mission that ended in a similar fashion, Nora heard a comment from Nate as they entered the ship and rounded the corner to the kitchen.

 

“Will you quit it with the theatrics Ray? We don’t need another Camelot.”

 

Nora hadn’t thought about the tales of Camelot in at least the last fifteen years. She was suddenly flooded with memories of details from every single chapter of the book that got her through her dreary days in the asylum. Her head shot up quickly as she looked between the faces of the team. 

 

Ray, noticing her confusion, spoke up.

 

“We went there on a mission,” Ray said. “Two years ago maybe?”

 

Nora looked up at him incredulously. Unless her wishes as an eleven year old actually came true this wasn’t adding up. 

 

Nate noted her look. “Yeah I know it’s supposed to be fake. I’m still convinced it is.”

 

Sara rolled her eyes. “Nate will you get over it? We were literally there.”

 

“But it was so inaccurate! It makes no sense-“

 

Nora, still trying to piece together the full story asked, “So you really went to Camelot?”

 

“I mean weirder things have happened.” Ray said. “Why is this one so hard to believe?”

 

“Because this is literally straight out of a fairy tale,” Nora chuckled. It was all just too ridiculous.

 

Nate perked up again. “Yes!” he pointed at her, “exactly my point!”

 

“What, so you just hung out with King Arthur and Sir Raymond of the… Oh shit.”

 

It wasn’t hard for her to piece together that Ray was telling the truth. The name was damn near the exact same and the look on his face told the whole story. 

 

He was absolutely beaming, and a slight blush crept up to his cheeks. 

 

_'This is all just too weird,'_ Nora thought. She didn’t know quite how to feel. So she settled on her default, mildly annoyed. 

 

Mildly annoyed at how Ray Palmer clearly could do no wrong. No matter how much Nora had grown to love and appreciate it, she occasionally got quite tired of him being so kind and honorable. Partly, because she didn’t understand it. His entire existence was an anomaly to her.  

 

“Of course Mr. Perfect over here is the savior of goddamned Camelot.” 

 

She was still laughing slightly. It was really all very fitting. The person who had risked so much to save her had been doing it before they even knew each other existed. Of course the person she seeked help from most was the same as the person standing in front of her, the person who had helped her all along. 

  
  
  


\-----------

 

Later that night, Nora and Ray lay together in what was slowly becoming known as ‘their bed’.

 

Slowly because they were not dating. Well, come to think of it Nora didn’t know what exactly they were doing. Calling anyone her boyfriend seemed so foreign, a thing she hadn’t thought about having since she was thirteen. And taking the ‘boy’ out of the equation and just calling him a friend was a huge understatement considering how much time they spent making out. 

 

But again,  _not dating._

  
  


Anyway, she lay with him as he stroked her hair, coaxing her into sleep as he almost fell into it himself. 

 

If anyone figured out what came out of Nora’s mouth next she would blame it on the hours spent without sleep, the artificial clock on the ship ticking towards far too late in the evening. But, here with Ray she had no problem saying it. 

 

“You were always my favorite.”  It was quiet and soft. His eyes were closed as if he had already fallen asleep, Nora didn’t feel the need to wake him up. 

 

His eyes stretched open carefully, a grin shone brightly on his face, nothing like the annoyed glares she would’ve gotten from anyone else who had just had their sleep interrupted. 

 

“What?” 

 

Nora considered closing her eyes and pretending she was sleeping and he was just hearing things. It had been a long time since she stopped denying her affections towards Ray. They had grown closer over the months. He had gotten quite good at breaking down her walls and she had gotten better at letting him in. Even though Nora had stopped (or at least tried to stop) closing him off, something about telling him this scared her. 

 

She hated her childhood. No matter how much Ray told her that nothing that happened to her was her fault, she was still ashamed of it. Nora wanted to pretend it never happened, ignore the trauma that she went through. As soon as she thought about burying the thoughts of the asylum and Mallus in her head, Ray's voice played out over it, saying what he always said when he could tell she was about to clam up. 

 

_It's not healthy to hide these things. It's okay to talk about it. I'll listen._

 

She spoke up. Softly. 

 

“The stories. Y’know, the whole ‘Sir Raymond of the Palms’ thing.”

 

He just smiled at her. Nora could tell he didn’t know quite what to say, but he settled on, “Really?”

 

Nora nodded against his shoulder. 

 

“I read them when I was a kid. In the asylum.”

 

Ray’s eyebrows rose gently, trying to push her to go further. 

 

“There was this crappy bookshelf, like ‘there might have been mold in it’ crappy. It had like seven books on it. All covered in stains with wrinkled pages.” Nora paused, “Now I want this on the record that I do not read, that's for nerds. I only did it because I was alone and there was literally nothing else to do, and I would never read if I could help it.”

 

Ray laughed in response and feigned being offended, “Hey!”

 

“I’m sorry, but it’s important to me that you know that.”

 

He just smiled back and waited for her to continue. 

 

Nora took a deep breath. “One of the books was, well obviously, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. On really bad days, the ones where it was hard to wake up but harder to just fall back asleep, I would read it. It made things easier. Not so lonely.”

 

She felt emotion welling up in her throat. Ray pulled her in closer, holding her tighter. 

 

“I wished that someone would pop out of the pages and fix everything. Someone kind, who would look past what I had been made into and help anyway. Now I know that was always you. You helped me before I even knew who you were.”

 

_God, this sounds so cheesy,_ Nora thought to herself, shaking her head. If at any point in the last year someone told her she would be tearing up about an old kid’s book and spilling her heart out to Ray Palmer she say they were even more screwed up than her.

 

Looking at him, Nora could tell Ray was at a loss for what to say. She couldn’t say that she blamed him. He just kept on smiling at her the way he always does. The way that makes her smile back.

 

“Well, I’m glad that I helped, but you never needed saving Nora,” He said firmly.

 

Nora rolled her eyes and tried to hold back laughter. Only Ray would be able to say something nice about the person she used to be, to believe in her as she was. 

 

“Come on! Give yourself some credit ‘Mr. Knight in Shining Armor.’” Each word was drenched in eighteen different layers of sarcasm.  

 

All Ray could bring himself to do was blush profusely and sigh the words “Oh goodness.”

 

Nora persisted even further. “I mean, I gotta be honest, I’m a little star struck right now. I’m literally laying not even two inches away from Sir Raymond of the Palms himself. Childhood dreams are coming true. Hell, I’ve even made out with Sir Raymond of the Palms.” 

 

Ray laughed and covered his face. “It’s not that big of a deal.” She had learned that he had never been exceptional at taking praise. He would nearly die saving the world and he would say that, ‘it wasn’t an inconvenience’ or, ‘it was a team effort’.

 

“Wow, so unbelievably humble. I’m swooning. My hero.” Nora said in a sing-song voice. 

 

They both laughed uncontrollably soft chuckles. She struggled to remember the last time she felt as peaceful as she did now, laying in the soft dimmed lighting, being held close, and feeling a certain warmth she was enjoying getting used to.  

 

Once their laughter sobered, Nora said, “Oh come on! I don’t believe that you, the biggest dork in the world probably, thinks being knighted is ‘not that big of a deal.’”

 

Ray pursed his lips together and grinned, unable to contain his excitement over the whole thing even though it had been so long. “Okay yeah, it was really cool.” He said it with the same enthusiasm he did when he was talking about the possibilities of cold fusion, which felt like forever ago. 

 

The pair fell into a comfortable silence before it was interrupted by Ray. 

 

“But I guess you’re the hero of the story now.”

 

Now  _that_ was something Nora had ever been called before. She could hear a sense of pride behind his voice.

 

Nora sighed. “What are you talking about?”

 

He shrugged before speaking again. “I may have helped you by being a hero in Camelot, but you are helping me by being a hero today.”

 

For a second Nora thought she might cry. A smile stretched across her face. The thought of being a hero for the man that was basically the poster child for sunshine, smiling, and just about everything else good in the world, made her feel like she was on top of it. She looked up at him, unsure of what to say, but nonetheless, the smile stayed.

 

“You’re the strongest, most amazing person. No matter what happened to you in the past, you still manage to be a good person. You’re kind and compassionate, even though you don’t want anyone to know. The fact that you try to be a hero makes you one. So if anything, you’re my hero too.”

 

Once again Nora was stuck not knowing what to say. She had never been showered with this much praise before, even from Ray, which was saying something. So with the same dumb grin still glued to her face, she settled on something familiar: snark.

 

“Wow, you really know how to lay it on thick don’t you?”

 

He laughed softly. “It’s not hard when you’re telling the truth.”

 

\-----

 

The next morning Nora isn’t sure anything was said after that. All she remembered was pressing a kiss to his lips and the pair of them holding each other as they both drifted off into sleep.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> come talk about ray palmer with me on tumblr @timetravelingpalmer !!!!
> 
> hope you liked it :)))


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